


"Matthew."

by orphan_account



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: 1x04, In the Blood, Kind of maybe romantic if you squint, Season/Series 01, Written for that scene in "In the Blood", clairedevil, reference to canon-typical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 03:07:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3752128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based off of Matt and Claire's conversation in, "In the Blood." My angsty view of the emotions of these characters while Matt is bandaging Claire. Kind of Matt/Claire if you squint (or not).</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Matthew."

**Author's Note:**

> I borrowed the lines from the show, and these characters (unfortunately) aren't mine.
> 
> Constructive criticism is always welcome!

“This isn’t gonna feel great,” Matt warned before applying antibacterial to a particularly nasty cut across Claire’s forehead, wincing slightly at her sharp intake of breath. It felt strange to patch her up after all the times she had done so for him, so he decided to focus on the backwardness of it all rather than other things. After all, she was supposed to patch up him. He was supposed to be the one covered in scars, beaten by ‘bad guys,’ not her. He pushed the thought away, guilt, and forced himself to get lost in the familiarity of cleaning up wounds. He’d surely done so enough times on himself and his father (and Foggy, once, after he had miraculously fallen down two flights of stairs at a particularly wild party).

 

“You got pretty good hands for a blind guy,” she said softly, her voice drawing him out of his thoughts, a note of pain in her voice that she was trying so hard to hide.

 

“Used to patch up my dad.”

 

“He ran around in a mask, too?”

 

“He was a boxer, took a lot of beatings.”

 

“Hmm, so you take after him, then?” she joked, and Matthew chuckled as he applied a bandage.

 

“Ow, shit,” Claire muttered, and Matt was suddenly overcome with remorse.

 

“I’m sorry.” He meant it, oh God he meant it. He couldn't believe he had let this happen, couldn’t believe that he had let anyone get hurt because of him. Oh so clearly, the thought _this isn’t what I wanted_ rushed through his mind, and his heart stuttered when he thought of all the other people he could have endangered just by being around.

 

“It’s okay. You’ve had a lot worse,” She replied, almost sounding as though she were disregarding everything she had been through. _It’s not okay,_ he almost said.

 

“I mean, um,” he stammered, “I’m sorry for getting you into this. I… I never thought that I’d be putting anyone else at risk.”

 

“It was my choice. You didn’t ask me to pull you from that dumpster.” _You would have been safer, better off if you hadn’t,_ he thought for a split-second.

 

“No, you did it because you’re a good person. And you almost got killed…” he stopped, and his voice grew quiet, heavy with the weight the day’s events had on him, “because of me.”

 

“Then tell me it was worth it,” she said, pleading, voice tinged with something Matt couldn’t quite name. “That.. tell me that you’ve got a plan, an end game.”

 

“Claire…” His pained voice gave it away, the fact that he was just as clueless when it came to the future as she was.

 

“Anything?” There it was, the something else, the desperation breaking through her voice. He winced internally, hating to hear her like this.

 

“I’m just trying to make my city a better place, that’s all,” he said, realizing latently how naive it sounded. He wasn’t making it better at all, part of the disease rather than the cure.

 

“I think maybe it’s a little more complicated than that now.”

 

“Nothing’s changing out there,” he almost whispered, “No matter what I do, I’m just- I’m making things worse,” Matt didn’t know it, hadn’t been paying attention, but if he had been he would have noticed that Claire had been paying as close attention to his words as he had been to hers. She could hear the defeat in his voice, lightly laced with self-hatred and disappointment. She also disagreed strongly with this particular statement of his.

 

“Tell that to the boy you saved from the Russians, or all the other people you’ve helped,” She said vehemently, because if he didn’t have faith in himself, she would need to have enough faith for the both of them.

 

“And what about the people I’ve gotten hurt? What do I…” he took in a pained, shuddering breath, “What do I tell them?” he asked, sightless eyes and strained voice begging her for an answer she didn’t have. She had rarely seen a grown man look so lost, and she was lost herself for a second when she realized that her Mike, who ran around the city by night, dispensing vigilante justice, and sending more than a few trained killers to the E.R., could have such fear and despair in his eyes, the kind of emotions that made grown men seem like children. She steeled herself, not sure what she was about to do but sure that she had to do something.

 

“Feel my heart.” She said, the words pushing out of her uncertainly. Mike seemed to focus on her intently, before she gestured to her chest.

 

“Come on, feel it.” his focus was on her heart, beginning to register its sounds, when she grabbed his hand and placed it square in the center of her chest… which was something that Matt had definitely not been expecting. He was confused for a second, and then he realized that Claire probably had no way of knowing of that particular ability of his.

 

“What is it telling you?” She asked, and the room fell silent. For that small window of time, the air felt heavy with something neither one of them was ready to put a name to. The world felt smaller and quieter, as if it had focused in on only them in that moment.

 

“That you’re scared,” he said, and for some reason the words made him feel sick. She nodded.

 

“Because I am, more than I’ve ever been in my life,” he could feel his stomach drop. “And I’m not alone. But you can do something about it…” Matt began to draw away, but her hand didn’t leave his, “For all of us, Mike.” There was something so potent in the way she said this, in the way she addressed him that he knew he would have done anything she asked if she had said it the same way. For some reason all of his promises to distance himself for her protection faded from his mind, and one word slipped out into the pregnant pause between them.

 

“Matthew.”

 

Absolute silence. A question hung in the air, touched faintly by surprise, and he wished he could fill the space her words had left with words of his own but nothing would feel the same. Instead, he opted to answer the question.

 

“My name is Matthew.”

 

She nodded before a faint smile he was barely cognizant of passed over her lips. They stayed like that for God knows how long, seconds or minutes that may have felt like hours or years, his hand in hers, oddly peaceful despite the Hell around them and the demons that they would inevitably have to face.

  
Then the moment broke, who knows why, maybe a too loud honk from a taxicab or the sudden awareness of how oddly their hearts stuttered, but it was gone. They somehow made it through the time it took for Matt to bandage Claire without letting the awkwardness left over stifle them, not that they weren’t painfully aware of it. After Matt had finished, Claire thanked him, not meeting the eyes that wouldn’t be able to tell if she were staring at them anyways, and stood at a distance that Matt found oddly too close and too far away. He later chalked it up to stress and exhaustion, but a voice in the back of his mind wouldn’t entirely let him believe that.


End file.
